LED driving lights, the source?

One of the lights I bought from ADV Monster failed and he didnt have any replacement 3-LED lights with integral dimmers - found these guys on line - They sell tons on ebay but his website prices are cheaper - paid paypal, got is shipped form china in about a week. Seem to be the same lights.

I bought the 1800 lumen 4 cree model - compared to my ADV light, damn these things are bright. I mount them on the fender bolts for daytime running and additional low-mid beams at night. Were pretty cheap at $139 shipped. The mounts are a wee but flimsy,we'll see how they hold up

No affiliation of course, just happy to have two lights again.

https://24x7diy.com/index.php/cPath/23

Did your failed lamp have a moisture intrusion problem? A friend had one that got water in it, and it failed. I have one that has some moisture in it too, but I dried it out and it seems to be working OK for the moment. They are not waterproof, recommend checking the O-ring around the lens.... perhaps grease it with silicone grease.

Internally there is a circuit board if you happen to remove the three screws on the back that hold the guts together (note, it is a bit of a job to reassemble if you take it apart this far), and my theory is this gets wet... spray that board with a contact cleaner that has a lube.......?????

These new ones look like the same deal. Wow a 3000 version!

Hmmm... They claim to be waterproof to IP65 standards on that web site

I can't tell how their ratings are established though. Are the lumen and power ratings per light, or per the pair?

Fred W said:

Hmmm... They claim to be waterproof to IP65 standards on that web site

I can't tell how their ratings are established though. Are the lumen and power ratings per light, or per the pair?

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I contacted them. they reply me very fast.

As per thr Reply Lumen and power ratings listed are for one light and they are selling Lights in pair due to High International shipping.

Check thr Lights Tech Review & water Proof test (redacted)

Admin Note: THis person was acting as a shill.

Thanks, Nick.

I was able to find the CREE web site and the specs for each of the 3 type of LEDs that they call out in their various lights at the "24x7" web site. It supports what they were saying. For instance, the CREE Model XM-L Led is capable of 1000 lumens per LED at a rate of 100 lumens per watt. So for 4 of them to produce 3000 lumens at 30 watts power draw seems reasonable.

This is quite a find. Now I just need to figure out how many lumens I want and how much power I'm willing to sacrifice on my watt starved 1st gen.

As a point of reference, a typical HID head light capsule will put out around 3000-3500 lumens at a 35-38 watt draw. The stock halogen headlamps put out around 1500 lumens each at 55 watts power draw. So with a pair of the 3000 lumen driving lights added to your stock lights you could effectively triple your light volume. With HIDs it would four times brighter than stock

Wow.

The waterproofness is dependent on the integrity of the o-ring seal. The lens is the weak point, IMHO. Mine had lenses hand ground (I assume variation here) with a slight bevel somewhat uneven, and the o-ring is quite thin. If the front cap is anything but full tight, they are not waterproof. I found mine a bit loose after riding a few thousand miles, so best insure they are tight from time to time. I had condensation plus some pooling of water at the bottom. I'm making an assumption that enough water will fill up until it either shorts an LED or the driver circuit board inside the unit. When I get to winter maintenance I am going to investigate further.... hopefully I can take measures to prevent any further water damage.

When MEM was passing through here on the way to EOM, we took a look at her Clearwater LED lights. She appears to have had a similar thing happen with the loose bezel/o-ring and the water intrusion caused the (plastic) silver reflector to fog up on one of the two lights. The lens was most definitely not glass on hers (we polished the clear plastic lenses while we had them off). The fogged light still seemed to work fine, but looked somewhat different when they were off.

I agree, some sort of preventive steps need to be taken with any of these lights to make sure the bezel rings do not unscrew with the road vibration. FWIW, I'm pretty sure that the Clearwater Lights set ME back quite a bit more loonies and twonies than these.

Fred W said:

Hmmm... They claim to be waterproof to IP65 standards on that web site

Click to expand...

LINK

IP Ratings (Ingress Protection)

A two-digit number established by the International Electro Technical Commission, is used to provide an Ingress Protection rating to a piece of electronic equipment or to an enclosure for electronic equipment.

The protection class after EN60529 are indicated by short symbols that consist of the two code letters IP and a code numeral for the amount of the protection.

Example: IP65 (NEMA 4)

The two digits represent different forms of environmental influence:

• The first digit represents protection against ingress of solid objects.

• The second digit represents protection against ingress of liquids.

The larger the value of each digit, the greater the protection. As an example, a product rated IP54 would be better protected against environmental factors than another similar product rated as IP42.

Too bad the Forum editor doesn't do tables.

IP TABLE:

First digit: Ingress of solid objects ------ Second digit: Ingress of liquids

0 -- No protection ------ No protection

1-- Protected against solid objects over 50mm e.g. hands, large tools. ------ Protected against vertically falling drops of water or condensation.

2 -- Protected against solid objects over 12.5mm e.g. hands, large tools. ------ Protected against falling drops of water, if the case is disposed up to 15 from vertical.

3 -- Protected against solid objects over 2.5mm e.g. wire, small tools. ------ Protected against sprays of water from any direction, even if the case is disposed up to 60from vertical.

4 -- Protected against solid objects over 1.0mm e.g. wires. ------ Protected against splash water from any direction.

5 -- Limited protection against dust ingress. (no harmful deposit) ------ Protected against low pressure water jets from any direction. Limited ingress permitted.

6 -- Totally protected against dust ingress. ------ Protected against high pressure water jets from any direction. Limited ingress permitted.

7 -- N/A ------ Protected against short periods of immersion in water.

8 -- N/A ------ Protected against long, durable periods of immersion in water.

The IP65 rating = solids - (6) Totally protected against dust ingress. Liquids (5) Protected against low pressure water jets from any direction. Limited ingress

think it pays to run some silicone sealant around the lens? I didnt see any fogging, but couldnt figure out how to open the dead one up after removing the three screws. It all seemed pretty tight and dry.

Thanks Alan. You learned me my something new for the day. :huh:

Now you're off the hook for the rest of the day. But somehow I doubt that will happen...

Eric L said:

think it pays to run some silicone sealant around the lens? I didnt see any fogging, but couldnt figure out how to open the dead one up after removing the three screws. It all seemed pretty tight and dry.

Click to expand...

As Ray said, and assuming that these are close clones of (if not identical to) the Clearwater units I that saw, it appeared to me that the primary water seal is a thin o-ring that is compressed by the screw-on front bezel. Normally, you'd just want to lubricate that with some silicone grease and let the rubber do its job. The bezel ring has a very fine pitched thread on the housing that it screws onto. Keeping that bezel ring from loosening would be my primary concern. You could put a little silicone sealer on those threads, but that may make it difficult to remove it someday. Same for any sort of loctite, as the threads are so fine and the housing is just aluminum. Not real sure what the best approach might be.

I'd be concerned with the wimpy little bracket breaking. Especially with my 6 daily miles of rippled dirt road shaking the Sh%&t out of everything. Wonder if a beefier bracket could be fabricated?

dcarver said:

I'd be concerned with the wimpy little bracket breaking. Especially with my 6 daily miles of rippled dirt road shaking the Sh%&t out of everything. Wonder if a beefier bracket could be fabricated?

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I've got one season on that type of bracket and light and it's not heavy, but neither is the light. It didn't break including 150 miles offroad, but nuts did back off and I'm planning to use loctite this winter or replace them with a shim. The company I got mine from now offers a heavy duty bracket that should work for the 3000 lumen lights here that doesn't appear to have the same wandering nut problem.

As a watt challenged FJR owner that has also done the gnarly FF200 HID lights--I think these lights are an excellent source of lumens and an excellent value.

My only question on the 24x7 DIY source is which ones are a "spot" configuration and which ones are "flood" configuration.....or are they all flood as I suspect?

ADV Monster offers definite flood and spot patterns, but none in the 3000 lumen variety. I've got a set of the 2000 lumen flood with a nice dimmer/high beam bypass, but planning a second set of 1500 lumen spots with heavy duty brackets for night desert work. At 1.8 and 0.85 amps respectively I figure 64 watts at full tilt....and that's still easily even doable by the Gen 1.

I like the look of the 3000 lumen ones. With the flood beam pattern, I wonder if they can be safely used with low beams of if it would provide too much glare for oncoming traffic. If aimed low, it might be OK but reduces the value for additional lighting down the road. Might have to wire the relay to the high beam. Are these likely to be dimmable?

Ross

RossKean said:

Are these likely to be dimmable?

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Yes, see post above I made. You set the low beam level so you don't blind or annoy oncoming traffic.

And no, you couldn't drive with them at full tilt with oncoming traffic....it will look something like this:



None of these lights have crisp cutoffs. That's what converting to HID low beams in the FJR reflector are best about.

I need a quick terminology definition. When you say "crisp cut-off. What exactly do you mean by cut off? Thanks TZ

SQUEAL said:

I need a quick terminology definition. When you say "crisp cut-off. What exactly do you mean by cut off? Thanks TZ

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See the above beam picture Iggy posted? Compare that with a low beam headlight picture from our FJR headlights below.



See how the top of the broadcast headlight beam is a crisp line transitioning from bright to dark? That is the "cut-off" he was talking about. This is what keeps your bright headlights from blinding on coming traffic.

ok thanks. that is what i needed.

Both the ADVmonster lights I bought and these can't qualify as anything other than 'narrow flood' or 'wide spot'. Shine them on the garage door and they make two big circles versus the bikes well limited low beal cutoff. I mount them low and point them low and no oncoming drivers flash their lights at me. These 1800s are way brighter than my remaining ADV light. It might be because that light had 15000 miles on it (I ran them always on high). Do LEDs turn yellower with age?

When I have them fender mounted, they positively wipe out the low beams entirely. At night, when I use the bikes high beams, they fill in the dark hole in front of the bike very nicely. At $139 a pair, I figured why not give them a try. I am also thinking that if these fail, the next lights are going on a mirror mount to keep them out of the muck and so they have less vibration.

So all 3 of the 4 led 1800lm models are listed as the same thing except the listing on top says (HID) any difference ? :huh: